Study inspects young open cluster NGC 3293

Tomasz Nowakowski is a member of the physics.org community.

An international team of scientists used the Very Large Telescope to study a young cluster. The results of the research were published on the arXiv pre-print repository.

A group of stars are bound to each other by a giant cloud of atoms. More than a thousand of them have been found in the Milky Way, and scientists are still looking for more. Our understanding of the formation and evolution of our galaxy could be improved if we expanded the list of known open clusters.

The Gem Nebula was discovered in 1751 and is located 8,400 light years away from the earth. A few blue and red supergiants are among the many early B stars that make up it.

Many photometric observations have been done, but few have been done to date. A group of astronomer led by Thierry Morel of the University of Lige in Belgium studied the stellar B-type population in order to understand its properties.

The analysis of the open cluster is based on the observations of about 160 B-type member candidates. The researchers said it was the most comprehensive study to date.

The study found that there is a distribution of stars that peaks at 200 to 250 km/s. Most of the stars in the cluster appear to be moving at less than optimal speeds. Spin rates were lower for more massive cluster members.

The age of the cluster was thought to be less than 20 million years old. The oldest stellar aggregate in the complex is thought to be NGC 3289. The new result is based on a realistic distribution of the spin rates and a detailed correction on a star-to-star basis for the effect of stellar rotation.

Despite the fact that most of them are fast rotators, the chemical analysis found that no objects expose coreprocessed material at their surface. Most of the members of this cluster are probably low-mass B dwarfs. The lack of strongly nitrogen-enriched stars in the cluster was acknowledged by the study, as only two of the cluster's B-type stars show evidence for a mild nitrogen enrichment.

More information: T. Morel et al, The Gaia-ESO survey: A spectroscopic study of the young open cluster NGC 3293. arXiv:2207.12792v1 [astro-ph.SR], arxiv.org/abs/2207.12792

There is a science network.